Toy Soldiers
by Arhel
Summary: Fate Stay Night. Ten possibilities in a world of infinite choices. Spoilers for the game, all routes and Hollow Ataraxia. Revised 10/30/2011.
1. Lost Avalon

_Disclaimers: characters belong to Type-Moon; translations my own. Anything that wasn't explicitly stated in the games was liberally made up, as I don't own artbooks or whatever. My take on Shirou may also be slightly AU since I wanted so very badly to smack the original with a rolled-up newspaper any number of times. And English needs to have furigana, it does._

_Updated for grammatical and readability fixes as a courtesy to the folks who bookmarked this (thank you). May add chapters relevant to Fate/Zero once the anime ends, but if so that will be on AO3 because the upload system on FFN is such a pain to use._

* * *

**I. ****Lost**** Avalon**

Shirou woke to the sound of cheering. As he sat up on the grass, he saw rows of tents and stalls, people in brightly-dyed clothing weaving between them, and pennants of many colors fluttering in the sharp spring breeze above.

The murmur of excited voices reached his ears, and the words themselves broke through his confused daze.

_The __new__ king-  
-save __us  
-damned__ Saxons  
-sir __Ector__'__s __son  
sword__ in__ the__ stone-_

Shirou's heart leapt in anticipation, while his mind ran through a thousand variants of _could-it-be__it-can__'__t-be_and settled for action in place of thought. He followed the flow of the crowd, squeezing awkwardly past a variety of strange faces babbling in a foreign tongue that he could somehow still comprehend. In the excitement nobody paid attention to him as he slipped around extravagant gowns and edged past armored bodies.

She stood on the grassy moor of fern and heather, ornate blade chased with gold and lapis lazuli held carefully in her hands like a burden. The triumph and wonder of the occasion belonged to the crowd of knights and ladies surrounding her, a respectful distance cleared between them and their new king. Even the old magician who had presented her crown had retreated into the circle of celebrants.

There was no triumph in the new king, and Shirou remembered again her quiet dedication. When she'd first spoken about her past, and related her understanding of the burden she'd carried, he hadn't wanted to believe her. And now he had certain evidence that she had known, from day one, exactly the weight of the duties that she had accepted.

Before he knew what he was doing, Shirou had pushed past the last of the spectators and stumbled into the clearing that, by unspoken consensus, had been left open around the king.

The crowd stilled, staring at the upstart squire who'd dared disturb the sanctity of the circle. Feeling his ears burning with self-consciousness, Shirou strode across the last few meters of ground before he could lose his nerve and run away. Up close, he could see all of the details that were hidden from the onlookers by wizard's glamour, aura of strength masking a girl half a head smaller than even his unimposing frame. Her delicate features and wide green eyes were just as he remembered, and even though her hair was not yet of a length to braid, it still sported the cowlick that she'd never managed to tame.

She stared at him, the strange boy in funny clothes who wasn't where he was supposed to be. And feeling like a sheepish moron, he smiled at her and whispered her name, to reassure her that he was a friend.

To let her know that, this time, she would not be alone.


	2. Clockwork Knight

**II.**** Clockwork ****Knight**

The sound of gunfire faded away into the dusk as one line cut their losses and retreated, leaving piles of machinery and bodies littering the blasted ground in their wake. They retreated because the remaining army hadn't the resources to force a pursuit, and for a few hours or days there would be a brief respite.

Somewhere in a glittering metropolis untouched by the war, some bigwigs in their polished black shoes and spotless pressed suits were delivering speeches of triumph, while another city was perhaps urging their citizens to persevere in the face of defeat. Or possibly, as was often the case, both were proclaiming victory. To those in the trenches who numbered their days by the skirmish, it might as well be a different universe altogether.

Wherever, whatever the fighting was about, the smell of metal and gunpowder was the same. The air tasted of ashes, and the ubiquitous old red of dried blood and mud seeped into his boots and clung to the underside of his fingernails. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a decent bath or eaten a full meal, and for a crazy, inane moment wondered if there was a packed lunch delivery service somewhere nearby that hadn't run away or been blown up. The things were everywhere, weren't they?

He wasn't sure when he'd started to realize the truth about his future. It hadn't been some sudden, divine revelation – just a growing suspicion that eventually solidified into certainty. She had known, too, although she had never mentioned it until the very end.

"Say hi to me again, when you meet her?" she had said, even as he searched frantically through his vault of blades for something that had the power to heal. "I know she's a bit cold and a jerk sometimes... but you know that too, I guess..." She had smiled at him through the blood and grime, a shaking hand pressed against the pocket of his coat where he always kept the pendant.

In the back of his mind he could hear the clink of chain and turning of gears, grinding out an endless rhythm, so different from the naïve ideals he used to harbor. Countless times he'd thought about his future self, all those years ago, and figured that that guy was perfectly justified in his low opinion of the walking disaster area that was Emiya Shirou.

Even tired and worn, he didn't stop, because somewhere in the kaleidoscope of ten thousand worlds, he had made a promise to keep going. He wasn't sure whom the promise was to, or when exactly he'd made it, but that somehow mattered less than the fact that there was an oath in the first place. And a real hero didn't go back on his word now, did he?

_I__ was__ not__ wrong._

Chuckling quietly to himself, the man who had once been Emiya Shirou left the rust-colored battlefield in search of more lives to save.


	3. Crown of Thorns

**III. ****Crown**** of**** Thorns**

"Do you hate the world?"

"No."

With that simple word, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place, and the giant tapestry of colored glass shattered, its iridescent shards raining down around them. Reality lurched, displaced time flooding back as though rushing into a vacuum.

For the first time Shirou turned and looked at the thing standing by his side. The faces of countless nightmares stared out at him from the shadows, young and old, human and not, beautiful and monstrous. They writhed around one another, eyes, claws, and fangs appearing and disappearing with nauseating frequency. Here was a many-legged horror raising itself from the depths of the ocean; there, a bright and fierce god wielding tongues of flame; yet another became the open maw of a roaring beast.

Beneath the skin of the beast was the vision he'd become so familiar with through two weeks (or was it two millennia?) of nightmares, the nameless, disfigured thing hanging in the darkness, bearing with it the collective sins of a village that had expanded over time to include a tribe, a nation, a continent, a world.

And then it coalesced, one final time, into the young man he'd first seen, a boy no older than Shirou himself. Across his skin slid the patterns of curses and death, disease, war and famine, all the evils of the world, cringing in the light. The face under the glyphs could have been his own, but even that was melting back into the shadows.

In the light of morning they looked across the world they'd saved, the tiled roofs of the houses of Fuyuki interwoven with phone cables, and the desolate, bare branches of the trees that clawed at the pale, frigid sky. The sleeping town was only just beginning to stir, men, women, and children beginning their usual routines with no inkling of the threat that had loomed so close.

It wasn't some vision of a fantastic fairytale kingdom; just Fuyuki, a normal town, with its accidents and its crowds, filth littering the gutters and the remnants of last night's garbage cluttering the alleyways. It was not a Utopia by any stretch of the imagination.

"Pretty, ain't it?"

"Yeah."


	4. Perfect Balance

**IV.**** Perfect**** Balance**

"You don't think much of the Grail, do you?" asked Shirou.

"Only insofar as it allows me to be material." The swordsman shrugged, matter-of-factly.

"Wasn't... wasn't the chance of a second life, or a miracle, or something, wasn't that what all the Spirits want?"

"All things living must someday come to an end," replied the Servant. He paused, running long, elegant fingers over the cracked and pitted stones that had once paved the path into the shrine. "It's pointless to cling to these illusions, and you miss the opportunity to fully enjoy them if you do."

Rising from his examination of the temple grounds that had, once again, turned into a battlefield, the warrior paced slowly, deliberately towards the temple structure that had been converted into an impromptu dojo, gesturing for Shirou to follow. Immediate threat vanquished, the serenity of the shrine was returning, and Shirou was careful to step lightly in respect to the spirits that still slumbered.

Twisted and broken swords, carefully held within racks against the wall, adorned the dojo. Shirou remembered making every single one, and could point out every dent and broken edge and the circumstances that had caused it. Flaws in the form that had given way beneath the force of blocks and parries, or lack of mana that had caused the blade to bend and the edge to dull, they were a catalogue of trial and error. In some cases, the error had nearly cost them their lives.

Taking one of a pair of shortswords off its rack, Shirou ran his fingers along the blade and felt for the imperfections, form and substance like invisible blueprints in his mind. This was far easier than fixing school radiators, because of his natural affinity for weapons. For a brief moment, the memory of the priest came back to him.

_"__Rejoice, __for__ your__ wish __will__ soon __be __granted.__"_

He'd always wanted to be a defender of justice. He'd just never had anything to fight.

And now that that had changed, he still didn't quite want to think about the purpose of the swords he made sometimes, even though he loved the care and craft that went into their making, and the resultant victories that they brought. And so the illusory swordsman completed the link for him with the purpose and precision of a craftsman, neither delighting in slaughter nor cowering in fear.

Shirou examined the blade in his hands again, thinking about the improvements he might make next, and imagining a time when the entire dojo would be filled with blades: like the swordsman before him, the proof of a lifetime's dedication to one single art.

The swordsman in question laid his long blade down upon the mats. The edge had dulled from warding off blows from a much sturdier sword, and part of the blade had warped; not enough to be visible to an untrained eye, but certainly a fatal flaw in the battles of the supernatural.

"Show me again your craft, blademaker."


	5. Promised Sign

**V. ****Promised**** Sign**

The old church was in ruins. Somewhere in the distance, a dull crash signaled yet another piece of masonry losing its fight against gravity.

Shirou dug his way free from the remnants of the pew that had shielded him from most of the falling debris, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found his Servant a few feet away, bruised and bloody but lacking any lethal wounds.

It was a stupid question, but he asked anyway. "Are you okay?"

"Sure. All in one one piece."

"But you had to use your Phantasm what, three times?"

"Good thing I'm pretty fuel-efficient then, eh? I oughtta be good for, say, another couple of months if there's no serious fighting."

They'd survived. In the end, there had been no heroes, only a slow, uphill struggle to contain and destroy the tainted miasma of curses before it had a chance to spread.

"I- I'm sorry."

"What?"

The words came out in a rush, and Shirou didn't bother to hide the fact that he knew. His Servant had known – had to have known – about the dreams they'd shared, even if he'd been too tactful to mention them aloud. "I'm sorry. I don't have the power to let you fight the way you want. That's why you're here, that's your wish, isn't it?"

"Sure, but it's not the only thing worth doing in life." Clapping him enthusiastically on the back, the warrior grinned and leaned down to peer into Shirou's eyes. "Don't beat yourself up over it, kid."

At close quarters the great hero of Ulster looked completely ridiculous. His bangs were smeared across his forehead with blood and sweat, livid purple bruises blossoming across his cheeks where he'd taken a nosedive into a statue. The metal hair clasp had gotten lost somewhere during the fight, and unruly blue hair spilled down the back of a striped sweater like a mutant ferret.

Shirou didn't need a mirror to know that he wasn't in much better shape himself. The sleeves of his shirt had been slashed to ribbons, skin beneath raw and scraped, and he could feel a dull ache in the back of his mouth where he'd probably lost a tooth or two. And yet he found himself smiling back, a goofy, stupid grin shared between kids who knew they'd broken the rules and there was going to be hell to pay.

Something in Shirou broke right about then, as the laughter bubbled over and he nearly collapsed on the spot. Leaning on each other for support and giggling maniacally all the way, they half-stumbled, half-walked the path back to normality.


	6. Falling Stars

**VI. ****Falling**** Stars**

He knew they couldn't keep running forever. Even if only one other participant remained, the grail would not be complete. And the Society had begun to take an alarming interest in his "Marble Phantasm".

Even if Shirou was an abject failure as a sorceror, his Servant wasn't. But they didn't dare use magic, and none of Shirou's experience and training as a high school student and semi-competent mage really prepared him for flight and concealment against powerful supernatural forces.

It was hard enough to hide themselves, and even the slightest hint of sorcery would betray them. Shirou thought sometimes that it had to be harder, way harder, for the woman walking beside him, who had lived in an era when magic was as natural as breathing. His fingers brushed the tips of her delicate ears, toyed with the strands of her fine, pale hair, stroking away the dust and ashes. She had made no complaint in their entire frantic flight across the countryside, even when they'd had to leave the roads and buses to camp out in the woods.

She had smiled at him, briskly brushing the dirt from her robes and folding their bedrolls with a practiced hand. Fleeing across hostile territory was hardly unfamiliar to her. "And at least this time I'm doing it of my own will," she had told him.

He hadn't had a good reply to that, even though he still cursed himself for not thinking ahead. When they'd first left Fuyuki, Shirou hadn't known where to go, because then _from_ had been much more important than _to_. If he'd thought to find a car, maybe, or hijacked a small plane or something.

The last train they'd caught had taken them far enough, and with a few days of hiking they'd be in Osaka, where he might be able to steal a car, create a new identity among the millions of ordinary people. Maybe even forge passports for them to fly to some faraway country where they'd never heard of mages or grails.

They couldn't run forever, but maybe they could run for long enough. The knowledge that it was going to have to end sometime made him hang on to the present with tooth and claw. Her hand was warm in his, reassuringly solid and real. Beneath the starry sky they walked, uncertainties of past and future momentarily forgotten.


	7. Smoke And Mirrors

**VII. ****Smoke**** and**** Mirrors**

"I do not feel that circumstances-"

"Nah, it's okay. I promised." The assassin had given up his one chance of retrieving his name – at whatever the cost – to help Shirou save the last true "family" he had. Even by ordinary standards, he was owed something, though Shirou himself preferred not to think in such cold, practical terms.

Sitting gracefully upon the tatami mat, the Servant had removed his white skull-like mask. It was now lying on the table between them, a symbol of generations of fear and respect. Without the mask, the master of assassins looked less like a legend and more like a man, even if dark scar tissue clung to his face where his features should have been and his spidery limbs still moved as though their joints were unhinged.

And perhaps that was more accurate, that the Spirit called by the grail was more the mask – or what it represented – than the man who wore it.

He remembered the dreams, the memories of paradise that had perhaps never been quite real, that had sustained the assassin through the years. And then the initiation, where he learned the truth behind the Mountain, and returned to repeat the vicious cycle.

The part of Emiya Shirou that had its head buried in the concepts of "fair", "right", and "just" wouldn't let him ignore the implications of those dreams, nevermind that he hadn't exactly been in a position to do anything about them. Until now.

He held out his hand, hovering over the mask, and nodded to the Servant to begin. For a split second he had to resist the urge to recoil from the touch of the cold, claw-like grasp, but he managed, and few moments later felt a pulling sensation as though his skin was being scraped down his arm.

When he looked up at the man sitting across the table, his own face stared back, and he could feel the living pulse in the hand still clasping his arm.

"It's not much, but it's the only thing I've got from my old man." Shirou didn't expect the man to go with all the defender of justice business, but he still wanted to know that Kiritsugu's name would pass to one who would make him proud.

"I understand."

Shirou had always held on to the conviction that righteousness would win out, regardless of the situation. Now was about as good a time to test it as any.

The Old Man of the Mountain placed the skull mask across his features and silently slipped away. A moment later, Emiya Shirou emerged into light of day.


	8. Penance

**VIII. Penance**

For the tenth time of the morning, Shirou's shinai flew from his hands and clattered to the floor some ten feet away. His wrists stung from the blow, and the already-forming ache in his muscles promised a truly torturous ordeal when he attempted to move tomorrow.

"That's enough." The giant of a man standing on the polished floor of the dojo lowered his weapon and offered Shirou a hand, pulling him to his feet with ease. The sunlight outside signaled noon, and Shirou's stomach growled at the sight of the bento boxes he'd left by the door that morning.

Wiping the sweat off his face with a towel, he collapsed unceremoniously against the wall, pulling lunch towards him and passing one of the boxes to the giant who settled silently down beside him. It still never failed to amaze Shirou how quietly the man could move, given his size. "So, um, can we keep training after lunch?" he asked hopefully.

"Not if you want to be able to walk tomorrow," replied the hero, around a mouthful of tuna. "You're pushing yourself too hard."

"But if we're attacked-"

"If we're attacked, you stay behind me." Emphasizing his point by pointing his chopsticks at Shirou's nose, he continued, "Do you have some sort of deathwish or something? You're trying to improve, and I certainly respect that, but you can't think that you're going to hold up against a Servant or even a normal sorcerer right now, do you?"

"I just want to be useful."

"You're most definitely not useful dead. What are you trying to prove, boy?"

"Nothing!" retorted Shirou, indignantly.

"Make up for, then?" Gentle amber eyes regarded him from beneath bushy brows, too knowing by half. It made Shirou pause as he opened his mouth to deny the question, as he saw for an instant the screaming faces in the fire, clawed hands grasping for life and eyeless faces glaring at him in accusation.

The giant shook his head, and the deep baritone of his voice was not unkind as he spoke. "It's not worth it, trust me. Whatever you do, you can't change the past, and the only one who decides when enough is enough is yourself. Not that I should talk," he added.

Shirou poked his rice for a few moments before answering. "I don't know. All I know is that I won't, I can't just stand there and let people get hurt."

He was rewarded by an exasperated sigh. "Alright, fine. But realize that you need skill to back up that kind of talk. I'll do what I can, but only if you fight by my rules. You may think nothing of risking life and limb but there's a number of people here," he gestured in the direction of the living room, where Fuji-nee was napping, "who'll be less than thrilled if you get yourself killed. Fair?"

"Fair."


	9. Dwellers in Darkness

**IX.**** Dwellers ****in**** Darkness**

They rushed westward with the night, leaving the battlefield behind to greet the dawn. Shirou felt slightly guilty about abandoning the fight just like that, but he had every confidence in the girl who stood in his place, a better mage than he'd ever be. All he could do was put his faith in her word that she'd finish the battle they'd started. Just as she had entrusted him with the safety of her sister.

The girl in his arms slept, breathing softly and steadily, a slumber uninterrupted by nightmares for perhaps the first time in over a decade. The soft hair that whipped in the wind would never be its natural color again, but the source of the poison was gone, and in time she might even be able to touch her magic potential without the pain that had been drilled into her all these years.

Behind them, long arms wrapped around her passengers, rode the master of the legendary mount. As the white wings beat a steady rhythm in the night air, she leaned forward on her perch, strong arms and lithe body supporting her passengers in their swift flight. She guided them to the very edge of the city, outside of the influence of the magical duel they'd just escaped.

They wheeled a slow, descending spiral into the park, a graceful whisper in the night. Shirou slipped off the Pegasus, gently easing his passenger down and carrying her to a bench, and turned to look at their protector.

She stroked the mane of the white phantasm, her long hair curling like living things in the breeze. He winced at the comparison that sprang naturally to mind, knowing she would find it painful.

So this was it. Her expression was unreadable beneath the black mask, and even at the end of their short association he didn't feel that he had a right to ask. But something in him wanted to try anyway, because in the brief moments of sanity during the war he had seen glimpses of joy that might have flourished under different circumstances.

She forestalled the attempt, answering his unspoken question. "My sisters are waiting."

Calling the white phantasm born of her own blood, she swung onto its back and vanished into the ether. For a moment he thought he could hear the voices of gulls and the rustle of waves from across the centuries, whispering along the shores of an island that was now beyond the reach of any mortal man.


	10. Into Infinity

**X. Into Infinity**

As though waking from a long, long nightmare, Shirou blinked slowly and stared at the dawn that colored the horizon. The remnants of the blackness that had spilled from the broken grail were melting in the light.

"It's... over..."

"So it is."

Prodding disdainfully at a patch of shadow with his sword, the king of kings surveyed his battlefield. He'd long since run out of mana to maintain his golden armor, and looked for all the world like a badly misplaced high schooler who'd encountered a wolverine, with half his clothing ripped to shreds and angry red gashes decorating his pale skin. And still, somehow, moving like he'd just waltzed off the catwalk of a fashion show. Blood was obviously in this season.

Shirou glanced down at the back of his hand, on which three triangular glyphs remained. He had not needed to ask. "But didn't you want-"

"No. Understand that I do not suffer interfering mongrels to pass judgment upon my subjects." Too exhausted to even attempt to follow that logic, Shirou simply sighed, and decided that thinking about it would only make his brain hurt. More.

"And you?" Scarlet eyes, slit like a cat's, turned on him, sharp and demanding. Even bloody and battered, his Servant lost none of the intimidating majesty that was his birthright. "What of that foolish ideal of yours?"

There was none of the usual mocking sting to the voice, and Shirou was at any rate too tired to manage a full burst of outraged indignation. He met the king's gaze evenly, and replied as he always did. "I want to become a defender of justice. I always will."

_"Imbecile. The world is not yours to save."  
"There's no such thing as eternity."  
"It is human nature to be selfish and cruel."_

Shirou was prepared for the scorn and derision that always accompanied their discussions – arguments? – in life philosophy, and so was caught off balance when his Servant's features softened into something that might almost have been a smile.

"Follow your dreams, Emiya Shirou. Perhaps one day you may even become worthy of them." As Shirou gaped, unable to find an appropriate response, the ancient king faded into the light of dawn in a shower of golden radiance, the words he would never say lingering in the silence.

_Prove it to me, Emiya. Prove to me that your faith in humanity is not misplaced.  
That the price we paid, so many centuries ago, was worth it._

Slowly, hesitantly, Shirou reached into his pocket and found the brilliant ruby shard, a trinket of no particular value he'd found in the vault one day. Objects sometimes created mystical connections, didn't they? He certainly hoped so, because damn if he wasn't going to make the jerk eat those words.

Cracking a tired smile, Emiya Shirou stepped out onto the path that spiraled upwards into infinity.


End file.
